Resources from the Ocean: Mineral Resources on the Deep Sea Floor, Energy Resources, Biotic Resources

At a Glance

• Deep sea minerals Nodules, crusts, sulphides
• Energy Tidal, wave, thermal, offshore wind
• Biotic Fish, shellfish, seaweed
• Seabed authority International Seabed Authority
• Policy theme Blue economy
• Exam link UPSC Prelims, Geography: Oceanography

Where Does It Fit?

This topic follows the major currents and the account of the ocean basins, and turns to what people take from the sea. It leads into the Deep Ocean Mission of India and the law of the sea that governs these resources. Previous topic: Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). Next topic: Deep Ocean Mission.

What Are Ocean Deposits?

In short: the sea floor is covered by sediment that comes from the land, from dead sea life, and from chemical processes in the water.

The sediments are a record of the history of the Earth. Cores from the sea floor reveal the climate over millions of years, and the age of the sea floor sediment helped prove sea-floor spreading, as in Convectional Current Theory and Mapping of the Ocean Floor.

What Mineral Resources Does the Ocean Hold?

• Offshore oil and gas: about a third of the world’s oil and gas now comes from the continental shelf, such as the North Sea, the Gulf of Mexico, the Persian Gulf and Bombay High, as in Relief of the Ocean Floor: Continental Shelf, Continental Slope, Deep Sea Plain, Oceanic Deep and Trenches.
• Placer deposits: heavy minerals, including ilmenite, rutile, zircon, monazite and garnet, concentrated by waves and currents on beaches and the shelf. The beach sands of Keralam (Kerala), Tamil Nadu and Odisha are among the richest in the world and are a source of titanium and thorium.
• Polymetallic or manganese nodules: potato-sized lumps on abyssal plains at 4,000 to 6,000 m, formed over millions of years around a core, rich in manganese, nickel, copper and cobalt. The Clarion-Clipperton Zone in the Pacific and the Central Indian Ocean Basin are the main fields.
• Cobalt-rich ferromanganese crusts: layers on the slopes of seamounts, with cobalt, nickel and platinum.
• Polymetallic sulphides: deposits of copper, zinc, gold and silver around hydrothermal vents on mid-oceanic ridges, as in Minor Relief Features: Mid-Oceanic Ridges, Seamounts, Submarine Canyons, Guyots, Atolls.
• Gas hydrates: ice-like solids of methane and water in cold, high-pressure sediments of the slope, a potential energy source. They are found in the Krishna-Godavari and Mahanadi basins and the Andaman area of India, but a method of safe extraction is not yet commercial. Methane is a strong greenhouse gas, so a release would be risky.
• Dissolved minerals and others: common salt, magnesium, bromine, potash, fresh water by desalination, phosphorite nodules and sand and gravel for construction.

Who Governs the Seabed, and What Is India Doing?

The seabed beyond the national jurisdiction is called the Area. Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the Area and its resources are the common heritage of mankind, as in United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). The International Seabed Authority, ISA, based in Kingston, Jamaica, grants exploration contracts and is meant to frame the rules, the mining code, for commercial exploitation. India was an early pioneer investor: it received the first registration as a pioneer investor in 1987, and has an ISA contract of 2002 for polymetallic nodules over 75,000 square kilometres in the Central Indian Ocean Basin, and a 2016 contract for polymetallic sulphides over 10,000 square kilometres on the Central Indian Ridge and the Carlsberg Ridge. India’s Deep Ocean Mission, approved in 2021 with an outlay of about 4,000 crore rupees for five years, includes the development of technology for deep-sea mining and a crewed submersible, Matsya 6000, to go to 6,000 m.

Commercial deep-sea mining has not yet started. The ISA council’s talks in March 2026 ended without an agreed mining code, and more than 30 countries have called for a pause or a moratorium, because the effects on deep-sea ecosystems are poorly known. Meanwhile, the United States has opened its own domestic permitting route for companies, which many countries see as outside the UNCLOS system, and the status of the first application is still unsettled. As an analytical point, the debate sets the demand for nickel, cobalt and copper, needed for batteries and the energy transition, against the risk to some of the least-known habitats on Earth, and the recycling of metals and the technologies that use less cobalt can reduce the pressure.

What Energy Can the Oceans Provide?

What Are the Biotic Resources of the Ocean?

• Fisheries: the oceans give about 80 million tonnes of wild-caught fish and other seafood a year, and aquaculture now supplies about as much again. The best fishing grounds are on the continental shelf, where warm and cold currents meet and upwelling brings nutrients: the Northwest Pacific, the Northeast Atlantic, the Peruvian coast and the Indian Ocean. India is the second largest fish producer in the world, with a coastline of over 7,500 km, after China.
• Seaweed: used for food, agar and alginates, fertiliser and biofuel; India is promoting seaweed farming along the coast of Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Lakshadweep, and has set up a multipurpose seaweed park at Ramanathapuram.
• Shellfish, pearls and corals: oysters, prawns, mussels and pearls, such as at Tuticorin in the Gulf of Mannar.
• Marine biotechnology: sponges, corals, and microbes provide compounds for medicines, such as anticancer drugs.
• Mangroves and coastal ecosystems: nurseries of fish, protectors of coasts and stores of carbon, as in the Sundarbans.

How Sustainable Is the Use of Ocean Resources?

The FAO estimates that more than a third of the world’s marine fish stocks are fished beyond sustainable limits, and the share has been rising for decades. Overfishing, destructive methods such as bottom trawling, bycatch, subsidies that support the overcapacity of fleets, illegal fishing, pollution and warming of the sea are the key causes, as in Temperature of Ocean Water: Vertical and Spatial Variations, the Thermocline. The collapse of the cod fishery at the Grand Banks in 1992 is a standard example, as in Major Ocean Currents of the World and Their Effects.

The concept of the blue economy, the sustainable use of ocean resources for growth, jobs and ocean health, is the response. Instruments include catch limits, closed seasons such as the annual fishing ban of 61 days in Indian waters, marine protected areas, the global target to protect 30 per cent of the oceans by 2030 under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, and the new treaty on the biodiversity of the high seas, the BBNJ Agreement, which was due to come into force in January 2026 after reaching the 60 ratifications needed. India’s policies include the Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana, launched in 2020 to raise fish production and to modernise the sector, and the Deep Ocean Mission. As an analytical point, small-scale fishers, who are the majority of Indian fishers, depend on the nearshore stocks that are under the most pressure, so the sector needs better data, credit and cold storage as much as it needs regulation.

Why Is This Topic Important?

• Concepts OTEC and blue economy asked
• India Fisheries and offshore wind
• Sustainability Overfishing and treaties

What Came Next?

The next topic describes India’s Deep Ocean Mission. Next topic: Deep Ocean Mission.

Key People and Terms

• OTEC Energy from ocean temperature difference
• Offshore wind Wind farm at sea
• Overfishing Catching fish faster than they reproduce
• Bycatch Unwanted catch of other species
• Blue economy Sustainable use of ocean resources
• BBNJ Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction agreement

Exam Corner

Mains Angle

Questions ask for potential and sustainability. These points add depth.

• Energy Offshore wind and OTEC
• Food Fisheries and seaweed
• Governance Blue economy and BBNJ